Glove changing apparatus and method



March 1, 1966 R. E. HAYNE ETAL 3,237,821

GLOVE CHANGING APPARATUS AND METHOD Filed March 25, 1964 INVENTORS Ralph E Vere/t Hay/1e Joseph Bruce Owen Attorney United States Fatent O GLOVE CHANGING APPARATUS AND METHQD Ralph Everett Hayne and Joseph B. Owen, Boulder,

(3010., assignors to the United States of America as represented by the United States Atomic Energy Commission Filed Mar. 25, 1964, Ser. No. 354,809 7 Claims. (Cl. 223111) The present invention relates generally to glove changing and more particularly to a new apparatus and method for effecting glove changes in enclosures such as glove boxes or the like.

Glove boxes and similar type enclosures may be advantageously utilized as confining or controlling work stations for hazardous materials, e.g., alpha emitters, low energy beta sources, biological preparations, and toxic materials. Oftentimes these enclosures may contain an inert atmosphere, such as argon gas, to enable the confinement and the working upon of particular materials in the enclosures.

In order to work upon or otherwise handle hazardous materials in any of the enclosures, access openings or glove ports are usually provided through a wall of the enclosure. These glove ports are, in turn, fitted with gloves which are secured in an air tight manner to the enclosure structure surrounding the glove ports. Thus, a technician may reach into the enclosure and work upon the confined materials while being protected from the hazards of the confined materials by the gloves, and without adversely atfecting an inert atmosphere in the enclosure.

The gloves used in these enclosures may, during the performance of the work inside the enclosure, be punctured or otherwise damaged, become radioactively contaminated, or be of the wrong type for a particular job as to necessitate a glove changing. However, the changing of these gloves often presents objectionable shortcomings and drawbacks due to the possibility of accidentally releasing contamination products from the enclosure during the glove changing and in the excessive time required to change the gloves.

The techniques heretofore used to change gloves in glove boxes and the like required manual glove manipulations which frequently exposed the inside of the glove box to room air and thereby subjected the surrounding room to airborne and surface contamination and gave rise to the possibility of admixing room air with and upsetting an inert atmosphere in the enclosure. The time required to change a glove in a glove box by using the previous techniques was about seven minutes, during which the glove box is not normally used. Thus, if several glove boxes or other enclosures require glove changes each day, the time involved in glove changing becomes a significant fraction of the total work time.

The present invention aims to obviate or substantially minimize the aforementioned and other drawbacks or shortcomings attendant with the heretofore practiced glove changing procedure by utilizing a glove change ring which eliminates direct manual manipulation of the old or damaged glove and substantially decreases the probability of exposing the interior of the enclosure to room air.

An object of the present invention is to provide a method of changing gloves of glove boxes and the like that may reduce the time required for such changes as heretofore practiced by a factor of about three.

Another object of the invention is to provide relatively simple and inexpensive means for facilitating assembly of gloves with glove boxes.

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Still another object of the present invention is to provide a sealing arrangement about an old or damaged glove in a glove box and the like while simultaneously replacing the old or damaged glove with a new glove.

Other and further objects of the invention will be obvious upon an understanding of the illustrative embodiment about to be described, or will be indicated in the appended claims, and various advantages not referred to herein will occur to one skilled in the art upon employment of the invention in practice.

A preferred embodiment of the invention has been chosen for purposes of illustration and description. The preferred embodiment illustrated is not intended to be exhaustive nor to limit the invention to the precise form disclosed. It is chosen and described in order to best explain the principles of the invention and their application in practical use to thereby enable others skilled in the art to best utilize the invention in various embodiments and modifications as are best adapted to the particular use contemplated.

In the accompanying drawing:

FIG. 1 is a sectional view of a portion of a glove box or similar type enclosure showing the relationship of a glove to a glove port and glove retaining means;

FIG. 2 is a sectional view similar to FIG. 1 showing a preferred form of a glove changing means or ring in position about the glove port with fragments of the new glove being shown along with the old glove to indicate their relative positions and retaining means;

FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing a preferred form of a glove changing ring constructed in accordance with the teachings of the present invention; and

FIG. 4 is a fragmentary sectional view of the glove changing ring illustrated in FIG. 3.

Referring to FIGS. 1 and 2 of the drawing there is shown a portion of a glove box or dry box generally indicated at 10 that may be of any desired conventional construction. For example, the glove box 10 may comprise an enclosed space defined by a shell including a transparent viewing section 11, a panel 12 forming a portion of the shell beneath the transparent section and containing a pair of horizontally spaced glove ports, one of which is shown in section at 13. The glove box 10 may be attached to or include an air supply and exhaust system (not shown) for maintaining the box interior at a pressure slightly less than ambient pressure, e.g., one-sixteenth of an inch of Water, to minimize the passage of hazardous materials into the surrounding room through openings in the shell.

A glove port may comprise any suitable structure capable of adequately supporting and maintaining a glove in position with respect to a passageway 17 extending through the glove port and communicating with the interior of the enclosure. Such a glove port may comprise a tubular metal member 19 encircling the opening or passageway 17 and extending in a lateral direction away from the panel 12 such as to form an annular glove mounting and retaining lip or rim 20. The tubular member 19 may be formed as an integral part of the panel 12 or be attached thereto by bolting or otherwise securing an annular flange 21 of the tubular member 19 to the panel 12. The rim 20 may be provided with a circumferentially extending notch or groove 23 about the outer surface of the rim 20 for receiving a glove retaining member such as a head of the glove or a band of elastic material as will be described in greater detail below. Oftentimes the rim 20 may be provided with another notch or groove 24 slightly spaced from the groove 23 such that both the bead of the glove and the band of elastic material may be utilized to secure the glove in place.

The gloves used in glove boxes and the like may be of any suitable material and of any desired length depending upon the particular use envisioned for the gloves. Thus, the description of the gloves hereinafter set forth is merely an illustrative example of one type glove usable in a glove box and is not intended as limiting the invention to this particular glove arrangement. The gloves, two of which are shown in fragmentary form in FIG. 2 at 26 and 27, may be made of a rubber or rubber-like material such as neoprene and be of an overall length of about twenty-seven inches. Each glove may comprise a hand portion and a gauntlet or sleeve portion. The end of the sleeve portion remote from the hand portion may be provided with a bead of thickened neoprene or other material to aid in securing the glove to the glove port structure. In an unexpanded condition the beads, such as shown in FIG. 2 at 29 and 30, have circumferences less than the circumference of the rim so that in order to place a glove over the rim 20 its bead must first be stretched to a circumference sufficient to pass over the rim surface. Consequently, when the bead is released after it is passed a desired distance onto the rim 20 it contracts into one of the grooves 23 or 24 and binds the glove to the rim in an airtight or leak-proof manner.

In addition to a glove bead it may be desirable to affix the glove to the glove port structure in a more secure manner by placing a retaining ring or band 31 (FIG. 1) about the outer surface of the glove sleeve portion adjacent the glove bead such that the band 31 clamps the glove material into the groove 24. The band 31 like the beads 29 and 30 is preferably of an elastic material and of dimensions less than that of the rim such as to require stretching prior to placing it over the glove and rim.

With a glove mounted on the rim 20 and the hand portion including most of the sleeve portion then turned in reverse fashion around the outward end of the rim 20 so as to place these portions inside the enclosure, a length or broken-ring 33 of a suitable material such as plastic may be placed inside the passageway 17 such as to maintain the glove sleeve portion against the inner surface of the rim and thereby facilitate the admittance of a technicians hand into the glove. The ring 33 may be held in the passageway by placing the opposite ends of the ring in an abutting relationship as shown in FIG. 1.

Referring more particularly to FIGS. 3 and 4 there is shown a preferred form of a glove mounting ring 35 constructed in accordance with the teachings of the present invention. This ring, which may be of any suitable material such as aluminum or the like, may comprise a base portion 36 of an annular configuration including generally parallel inner and outer walls 37 and 38 respectively, and a radially outwardly extending flange-like portion 39 adjacent one end thereof. The outer wall 38 may be provided with a circumferentially extending notch 41 adjacent the end of the ring 35 remote to the flange 39 for receiving the bead or other portion of a new glove such as shown in FIG. 2. The notch 41 which forms a pro jection or lip 42 adjacent a leading surface 43 of the ring, may be of any desired shape, such as, for example, a notch with teardrop-like appearances, i.e., a gradually inwardly sloping upper portion and a sharply outwardly turned lower portion, has been found satisfactory. The inner diameter or the inner circumference of the ring 35 is preferably greater than the bead of the glove when the latter is mounted on the outer surface of the glove port rim 20, thus enabling the ring 35 to encircle the rim 20 and the glove bead such that the leading surface or face 43 of the ring 35 with a glove portion disposed thereover, as will be described below, establishes an air sealing relationship with the surface of the glove box panel 12. It may be desired to maintain minimum runout on the face 43 to assure that essentially the entire portion of the glove on the ring covering the face 43 is held tightly against the surface of the glove box panel 12 to establish a good seal therewith; for example, runout of about five-thousandths of an inch or less has been found satisfactory.

In order to orient the base portion of the ring over the rim and maintain a portion of the carried glove in an abutting relationship with the panel 12, a generally U- shaped handle 44 may be secured to the base portion. The U-shaped handle 44 may comprise a pair of members such as rods 45 and 46 transversely extending from the uppermost surface of the flange 39 against which one end of each rod may be secured in any suitable manner such as by welding or the like. The other ends of these rods may be coupled to each other by a crossbar or rod 47 extending therebetween on a plane generally parallel with surface 43 of the base portion. Rod 47 may be formed integral with the rods 45 and 46 or be secured thereto by welding or the like and include an enlarged central portion or handgrip 48 which may be knurled to aid in gripping the handle. The handle 44 may be oriented on the base portion 36 in such a manner that it is located to one side of or offset from the center of the base member for enabling the glove change ring to be more effectively used with the right and the left hand glove ports as will be described below.

While the dimensions of the glove changing ring ordinarily depend upon the particular glove port configuration and dimensions being used, a glove changing ring of the following dimensions may be satisfactorily used to change gloves in a glove box or enclosure having a generally circular glove port with the outer diameter of the rim being about nine inches and of a configuration generally similar to that illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2. The base portion 36 may be of a substantially circular configuration with a maximum diameter of about ten and one-half inches and an inner diameter of slightly less than nine and three-fourths inches. An intermediate diameter, i.e., the diameter from the surface of the outer wall 38 may be about ten and one-eighth inches. The base portion 36 may have a thickness of about one inch or, in other words, the distance between the upper surface of the flange 39 and the face 43 along the inner wall 37 may be about one inch. The length of the wall 38 may be about threefourths of an inch such that the flange 39 with a minimum thickness of about one-fourth of an inch is sufficiently strong as to adequately support the load placed upon the handle 44. The notch 41 in the wall 38 may have a radius of about three thirty-seconds of an inch with the point of said radius being adjacent a location on the wall 38 that is spaced about one-fourth of an inch from the face 43. The upper portion of the notch may be formed on an angle of about thirty degrees with respect to the surface of the wall 38 to attain the aforementioned teardrop configuration for facilitating the reception of the glove head in the notch and the placement and retention of glove on the ring. The rods 45 and 46 supporting the crossbar 47 may be of about one-half of an inch in diameter and be secured to the base portion at locations thereon such that the crossbar 47 is laterally offset about two inches from the center of the base member. These rods 45 and 46 may be of a length sufi'lcient to separate the interconnecting crossbar 47 about six inches from the base portion.

In order to use the described glove changing ring 35 in a glove changing operation the following sequence of steps may be utilized.

Attach a new glove 27 to the glove change ring 35 by expanding the bead of the glove until it passes over the end of the base portion 36 and into a nesting and retaining relationship in the notch 41. After positioning the bead 30 in the notch 41, the remaining portions of the glove may be turned about or pulled 33 over the leading face 43 of the ring 35 such that the glove extends through the ring 35 and rearwardly in the direction of the handle 44. With the glove extending through the ring 35, a portion of the glove adjacent the head 30 fits tightly against the face 43 to facilitate the establishment of the seal with the surface of the glove box. While afiixing the glove 27 to the glove change ring it may be worthwhile to assure that the proper or desired side of the glove is exposed, that if the glove to be changed is a right hand glove the handle 44 of the glove change ring should be to the left of the base portion center, and that the glove thumb should be properly oriented so that the glove, once in stalled, will not require substantial readjustment. Place the old glove 26 well back into the enclosure. Insert right hand completely into the new glove 27. Remove the inner glove retaining ring 33 and thereafter the outer ring 31 from the old glove 26. Avoid handling the old glove after both rings are off. Place the gloved hand, palm up, into the glove port opening 17 and grasp the old glove 26 at a location as close to the glove port opening as feasible. Gently place the glove change ring 35 over the rim '20 and move it towards the panel 12 to press the glove against the panel 12 to form the seal and thereafter hold the glove change ring 35 tightly against the panel with the left hand. With a secure grip upon the old glove bend the hand at the wrist toward the body, using the knuckles against the inside of the glove port as a lever to pull the bead 29 of the old glove out of the bead retaining notch 23 in the rim 20 and over the leading edge thereof and thereafter gently and firmly pulling the old glove downward and towards the center of the enclosure until the glove is completely loosened. The old glove 26 may then be dropped into the glove box to be subsequently removed as waste matter therefrom. The hand may then be removed from the new glove 27 and be used to slip the bead 30 of the new glove off of the glove changing ring and onto the rim 20. The glove change ring may then be removed and the bead slipped into its retaining notch. The outer ring 31 may be expanded or stretched and slipped onto the rim to clamp the glove in the notch 24 and the inner ring 33 may thereafter be replaced.

While the above described glove changing procedure normally prevents the escape of hazardous materials from the enclosure it may be preferred from a health standpoint to provide suitable monitoring devices in the area during the glove change.

Another method which may be utilized to replace gloves of a glove box or the like may comprise stretching a portion of a new glove by hand, passing the stretched glove portion over the glove port rim until it abuts against the glove box panel, and removing the old glove while maintaining the new glove in its stretched condition. This method may be accomplished by two technicians in that one of them may hold the new glove in a stretched condition against the panel While the other removes the old glove. be accomplished by a single technician using one hand to maintain the stretched portion of the new glove against the panel while using the other hand to remove the old glove.

It will be seen that the present invention sets forth many desirable features in that it provides a substantial reduction in the time required to change gloves and also assures that the technician doing the chan ing is protected from the contamination materials in the glove box. The glove changing ring and the glove ports herein described are generally directed to circular configurations, but it is to be understood the glove changing ring may be of any desired shape, such as oval or the like so as to conform to a correspondingly shaped glove port. While the life of a glove in a glove box or the like is normally dependent upon usage and environment, gloves in some instances last only a week or ten days. Thus, for example, in one area where a great number of glove boxes and similar enclosures are used, the changing of five to six hundred gloves per month is fairly common. Consequently, the portion of the total work time for all the glove boxes and other enclosures that is saved by utilizing the method and apparatus of the present invention becomes quite significant when compared to the previous glove changing procedures.

However, the changing may As various changes may be made in the form, construction and arrangement of the parts herein Without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention and without sacrificing any of its advantages, it is to be understood that all matter herein is to be interpreted as illustrative and not in a limiting sense.

We claim:

1. A method of installing and replacing a glove of an enclosure having a wall portion defining a glove port, comprising the steps of fashioning a sleeve portion of a glove to a perimeter greater than the wall portion which defines said glove port, placing an end of the fashioned sleeve portion in registry with and overlying the glove port and encircling the wall portion, pressing and maintaining the fashioned sleeve portion against a surface encircling the glove port to form a seal therewith, everting said glove so as to project through said glove port into said enclosure and into the confines of another glove carried by said wall portion, displacing said other glove from said wall portion, and collapsing the fashioned sleeve portion to form a seal against said Wall portion at substantially the location from which said other glove was displaced.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the displacing of said other glove is attained by inserting a hand into the glove having the fashioned sleeve portion, grasping said other glove from the interior thereof, separating the latter from said wall portion, and thereafter depositing it in said enclosure.

3. A device adapted to be used with gloves including hand covering portions, and sleeve portions for facilitating the installing and replacing of said gloves about the periphery of an aperture in an enclosure, said device comprising an annular base portion having an inner diameter greater than the outer diameter of the glove receiving aperture in said enclosure and having a leading edge, means for maintaining the sleeve portion of a glove on the base portion about an outer periphery thereof, and an upper portion secured to said base portion for facilitating the guiding of the latter and its leading edge into a position about said glove receiving aperture to press said leading edge and a section of said glove against said enclosure to establish a sealing relationship therewith.

4. The device claimed in claim 3 wherein said means comprises circumferentially extending projection means disposed adjacent the surface of the base portion remote from said upper portion and defined by a notch extending about the outer surface of the base portion, said notch including a sharply outwardly turned lower portion immediately adjacent the leading edge of the base portion adapted to confine a bead of the glove therein.

5. The device claimed in claim 3 wherein said upper portion comprises a crossbar spaced from the base portion by an elongate member secured to the base portion.

6. The device claimed in claim 5 wherein the crossbar extends across the base portion in a plane laterally spaced from the center of the base portion.

'7. A device for use in applying gloves to glove boxes, comprising an annular base member having at one face thereof a seating edge disposed in substantially a single plane and about the exterior thereof a peripherally disposed glove retaining seat, retaining means carried by said member at said seat, and a supporting and guiding arm secured to a surface of said member disposed opposite to said seating edge and extending in a direction away from the latter.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 3,051,963 9/ 1962 Hallett 227O 3,084,684 4/1963 Saunders 2270 X 3,140,495 7/ 1964 Gottwick 2-270 3,174,703 3/ 1965 Falkum 24296 JORDAN FRANKLIN, Primary Examiner. I. R. BOLER, Assistant Examiner. 

1. A METHOD OF INSTALLING AND REPLACING A GLOVE OF AN ENCLOSURE HAVING A WALL PORTION DEFINING A GLOVE PORT, COMPRISING THE STEPS OF FASHIONING A SLEEVE PORTION OF A GLOVE TO A PERIMETER GREATER THAN THE WALL PORTION WHICH DEFINES SAID GLOVE PORT, PLACING AN END OF THE FASHIONED SLEEVE PORTION IN REGISTRY WITH AND OVERLYING THE GLOVE PORT AND ENCIRCLING THE WALL PORTION, PRESSING AND MAINTAINING THE FASHIONED SLEEVE PORTION AGAINST A SURFACE ENCIRCLING THE GLOVE PORT TO FORM A SEAL THEREWITH, EVERTING SAID GLOVE SO AS TO PROJECT THROUGH SAID GLOVE PORT INTO SAID ENCLOSURE AND INTO THE CONFINES OF ANOTHER GLOVE CARRIED BY SAID WALL PORTION, DISPLACING SAID OTHER GLOVE FROM SAID WALL PORTION, AND COLLAPSING THE FASHIONED SLEEVE PORTION TO FORM A SEAL AGAINST SAID WALL PORTION AT SUBSTANTIALLY THE LOCATION FROM WHICH SAID OTHER GLOVE WAS DISPLACED. 